How Handshake Reviews Companies

These are the rules behind every Handshake Score and ranking. We publish them so readers, and the companies we cover, can check our work.

Handshake reviews companies in industries that sell door to door. Our current coverage is pest control companies operating in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, ranked in The Best Pest Control Companies in the Pacific Northwest. By our evidence, nine of them sell door to door and three do in part.

Every score is computed only from verified, sourced facts. Each point added or taken away is listed on the company’s page with a link to the source it came from, so you can check it yourself.

• How we research a company
• The Handshake Score
• The five factors
• Calibration rules
• What’s scored and what isn’t
• Known limitations
• Sources
• Corrections and right of reply
• Independence

How we research a company

Each company starts with a research record: facts gathered from public sources, each saved with the link it came from, the date it was retrieved and, where possible, the exact text on the page. The sources include:

• Customer review platforms such as Google, Facebook, Trustpilot, Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack and Yelp.
• Better Business Bureau profiles: grades, complaint counts, alerts and customer reviews.
• State pesticide license lookups and business registries in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
• Court and regulatory records.
• The company’s own website, published terms and contracts.
• Employee review sites, used only for the separate Workplace score.

A verifier then reopens the sources and checks each fact against them. In the current records, 2,299 facts were checked: 1,753 confirmed, 531 corrected and 7 removed. The current records were verified between October 11, 2026 and October 13, 2026. The verifier also rates confidence in each part of the record, which feeds the confidence rating described below.

Facts that need a judgment call (contract terms, counts of first-hand accounts, how a legal matter is classified) are recorded as scoring inputs, and each input cites the fact it came from. The score is then computed mechanically from those inputs, so the same record always produces the same score. Anything that couldn’t be checked is listed on the company’s page under “What we couldn’t verify.”

The Handshake Score

The Handshake Score runs from 0 to 10 with one decimal place. It’s a weighted average of five factors, each scored from 0 to 10:

Handshake Score = 30% Customer satisfaction + 20% Complaint record + 20% Sales and contract fairness + 15% Licensing and compliance + 15% Legal and regulatory record

• The score covers the company’s Pacific Northwest operation in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Company-wide facts count when they concern the same brand or legal entity, and the company page labels them “company-wide.”
• Ties in the ranking are broken by Pacific Northwest review volume.
• Each company page shows the full breakdown, with every point added or taken away linked to its source.

When data is missing

Missing data is never treated as good or bad. If a factor has no usable inputs, it’s left out and the other weights are scaled up so they still add to 100%, and the company’s page says which factor is missing and why.

For example, without the complaint record factor the weights become customer satisfaction 37.5%, sales and contract fairness 25%, licensing and compliance 18.75% and legal and regulatory record 18.75%. Today, some scores leave out at least one factor.

The five factors

Here is exactly how each factor is scored. Every factor is kept between 0 and 10.

Customer satisfaction (30%)

This factor turns customer star ratings into a score.

• Google: the Google rating across the company’s Pacific Northwest listings, averaged with each listing weighted by its number of reviews.
• Other platforms: BBB customer reviews, Trustpilot, Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack and Yelp, each converted to a 5-point scale. Each platform counts in proportion to its number of reviews, up to 500, so one very large platform can’t drown out the rest. A Facebook “% recommend” figure becomes a rating of 1 + 4 × the share who recommend (90% becomes 4.6).
  • A platform needs at least 5 reviews to count.
  • Figures for the Pacific Northwest or a local branch beat national ones. A national figure is used only when that platform has no regional figure, and it’s labeled company-wide.
  • Never counted: survey feeds the company runs itself (such as Listen360) and sites that mirror Google reviews.
• Blend: if the other platforms add up to at least 20 weighted reviews, the blended rating is 60% Google and 40% other platforms. Otherwise it’s the Google rating alone.
• Score: (blended rating − 2.5) ÷ 2.5 × 10. A blended rating of 2.5 stars or lower scores 0, 3.75 stars scores 5, 4.5 stars scores 8, and 5 stars scores 10.

Complaint record (20%)

This factor measures how often customers file BBB complaints, relative to the company’s size: BBB complaints from the last three years per 1,000 customers. Companies don’t publish customer counts, so we use a stand-in, the complaint base:

• When the BBB profile covers Pacific Northwest branches, the base is the company’s total Pacific Northwest Google reviews.
• When the BBB profile mixes the Pacific Northwest with other regions, the base is the company’s national Google review total, and the result is labeled company-wide. Trustpilot, BBB review, Facebook and company-claimed counts are never used as the base.
• When BBB complaints can’t be tied to a comparable customer base, this factor isn’t scored (see calibration rule 1). The BBB totals are still shown on the company page, and poor BBB review averages still count in customer satisfaction.

The rate sets the starting points:

Then these adjustments apply, down to a floor of 0:

When a company has several Pacific Northwest BBB profiles, their complaints are added together into one rate, and the worst alert and grade among them apply.

Sales and contract fairness (20%)

This factor starts at 10 and loses points for the terms and sales practices below, down to a floor of 0. Only sourced terms count, and a term we couldn’t confirm costs nothing. If the record has no contract terms and no sales-conduct findings at all, the factor isn’t scored and the other weights scale up, so an unknown contract never earns a perfect score.

Licensing and compliance (15%)

This factor starts at 10 and loses points only for confirmed problems, down to a floor of 0. A license we couldn’t look up (for example, because Idaho’s lookup only searches individual license holders) is not a deduction.

Legal and regulatory record (15%)

This factor starts at 10 and loses points only for resolved matters in the table below, down to a floor of 0. Recent matters cost more. Pending lawsuits, other private suits and allegations are shown on the company page but not scored.

Wage-and-hour cases count in the separate Workplace score, not here.

Calibration rules

Close calls are settled the same way for every company. These rules decide them, as of calibration rules v1.0.5.

1. Complaint base. The customer base used for the complaint rate depends on what the BBB profile covers.
   • A profile covering Pacific Northwest branches uses the company’s Pacific Northwest Google review total.
   • A profile that mixes the Pacific Northwest with other regions uses the company’s national Google review total, when the record has one.
   • A national or headquarters profile whose complaints can’t be tied to a comparable review base, or a parent company’s totals, can’t be attributed. The complaint record isn’t scored, and the counts are shown on the page for context.
   • BBB review counts, Facebook counts and customer counts the company claims are never used as the base.
2. Other review platforms. Each platform is chosen on its own: a national figure is used only when that platform has no Pacific Northwest figure. BestCompany, Checkbook, Birdeye, Trustindex, Listen360 and any directory that mirrors Google or refers customers are always left out.
3. Automatic renewal. Counts only when the company’s own terms, FAQ or statements say service continues or renews after the first term until the customer cancels. Customer reports alone don’t count.
4. Cancellation by phone only. Counts when the company says so, or when two or more independent complainants report being required to call. The record notes which.
5. Misstated terms. Counts first-hand accounts that a company rep actively misstated the term, price or cancellation conditions at or before signing. Not counted: pure billing disputes, changes in the scope of work, “I thought…” confusion without a claimed statement, and second-hand accounts. Omissions (“nobody told me about the fee”) are noted but not counted.
6. No-soliciting signs. Counts first-hand accounts of reps knocking despite a posted sign (“no soliciting,” “no trespassing” or an HOA no-solicitation notice) or knocking after 8 p.m.
7. Cancellation fee. The fee the company states wins. Otherwise, first-hand reports of the fee are sorted into the four fee bands in the table above (flat $150 or less, flat over $150, under 50% of the remaining balance, 50% or more). Each report counts toward its own band and every milder band, because a harsher fee is evidence of at least the milder one. We use the harshest band that at least two independent reports reach, and record the lowest amount among those reports. If no band reaches two, the fee is treated as unknown, so a single outlier can’t set it. (Rule added in v1.0.3; band counting since v1.0.4.)
8. Minimum term. The term the company states wins; if its statements conflict, the shortest one. Otherwise, if two or more independent first-hand sources report a term, we use the shortest reported. “The first year, then month to month” counts as 12 months. (Since v1.0.2.)
9. Expired or suspended licenses. Count only for a branch-level company record: the designated applicator license tied to an operating Pacific Northwest branch. Entries for individual operators don’t count. A suspended designated-applicator license with no current replacement shown for that branch does count.
10. Dating legal matters. Criminal matters are dated by the plea or conviction date. A parent company’s matters apply only if the parent owned the brand at the time.
11. National BBB totals. National BBB complaint totals can’t be compared yet, because we don’t have national review totals to divide them by. Those companies’ complaint record isn’t scored until national Google review totals are collected. Their BBB review averages still count in customer satisfaction, and the totals are shown. (Since v1.0.2.)
12. Reports with no stated location. A first-hand report counts toward sales and contract fairness only if it’s tied to the Pacific Northwest: it appears on a Pacific Northwest profile (a branch listing or a Pacific Northwest BBB profile), or the reviewer’s stated location is in Washington, Oregon or Idaho. Reports from national or multi-state feeds with no stated location are shown on the page but not counted. (Since v1.0.5.)

What’s scored and what isn’t

Shown on the page but not scored

• Pending lawsuits, private suits other than settled class actions, and allegations.
• Contract terms we couldn’t confirm. An unknown term doesn’t cost points.
• Licenses we couldn’t confirm or look up. Only confirmed license problems are deducted.
• Accounts that don’t meet the counting rules above, such as omissions and second-hand reports.
• BBB complaint totals that can’t be tied to a comparable customer base (6 companies today).

Shown beside the score, never in it

• Workplace score (0 to 10): employee ratings from Indeed, Glassdoor and RepVue, each counted in proportion to its number of reviews up to 500, mapped as (rating − 1) ÷ 4 × 10. It loses 1 point per settled or adjudicated wage-and-hour case in the last five years, and it’s shown only when there are at least 20 reviews in all. 14 scored companies have one.
• Door-to-door badge: Yes, Partial or Not found, from the evidence of how the company sells. Today 9 companies are marked Yes and 3 Partial.
• Ownership badge: independent, private-equity-backed, franchise or subsidiary.
• Confidence: High, Medium or Low, from how much evidence sits behind the score and how well it held up when checked. It never changes the score. See How confidence is set.

How confidence is set

Each score’s confidence is worked out the same way for every company, from its research record. Each input below earns points, and the points are added up (at most 11). 7 points or more is High, 4 or fewer is Low, and anything between is Medium. A score is also Low if the verifier rated its customer reviews, licensing or legal record low. Low-confidence scores are marked “Provisional score.”

Each company page shows its confidence and the inputs that kept it from rating higher, under “What we couldn’t verify.” Reddit coverage doesn’t affect confidence. (Confidence rule v1.2.1.)

Known limitations

These gaps affect the current scores. The figures below are counted from the research records.

• National BBB complaint totals aren’t scored yet. For 6 companies, BBB complaints can’t yet be tied to a comparable customer base, so the complaint record is left out:
  • Saela Pest Control
  • Brooks Pest Control
  • Senske Lawn, Tree & Pest Control
  • Alta Pest Control
  • Aptive Pest Control
  • Terminix
• Confidence. Current confidence: High for 7 and Medium for 13. It reflects how much evidence sits behind each score and how well it held up (see How confidence is set). Reddit was searched directly for every company (post titles and opening text; comment threads not fetched yet). Reddit coverage doesn’t affect confidence, and Reddit presence isn’t scored. No score is marked provisional.
• Google showed our tools a limited view of reviews. In most records, Google showed only a few reviews per listing or wouldn’t sort them, so review themes rely on the reviews that could be read.

The rankings page keeps a running list in What we couldn’t verify yet, and each company page lists its own gaps.

Sources

The current records cite 1,312 distinct sources. Each company page ends with a numbered list of its sources and the date each was retrieved, and the small numbers throughout the page link straight to them. By the part of the page they support:

Public records cited, with the number of company records that cite each:

Corrections and right of reply

If you think a fact on Handshake is wrong, tell us through our contact page. Name the company and the page, the fact you think is wrong, and, if you can, a source that shows the correct information. A fact that turns out to be wrong is corrected in the record, and the score is recomputed under the same rules.

Companies we cover can respond too. Send your response through the contact page with the sources that support it. We add sourced responses to the company’s record. A response can correct a fact; it can’t change the rules on this page.

Independence

Companies can’t pay to change their ratings, to appear in or be left out of our rankings, or to change where they rank. We don’t accept payment for coverage. Scores come only from the sourced facts and the published rules on this page.